Helsinki Roller Derby was founded in March 2009 by a group of Finnish women who discovered that what they were missing in their lives were big hits, booty blocks and skating at high speeds. Those women are now giving hip checks and bruises to an army of new recruits and the league continues to grow fast.

Roller derby is an aggressive full-contact sport played on classic quad-skates and played entirely by women. A roller derby game, also known as a bout, consists of two 30-minute periods during which the two opposing teams try to score as many points as possible; the team with the most points at the end of the game wins. Each team has only one point-scorer on the track at a time, she is known as the Jammer. It is the Jammer’s job to pass through the pack of other skaters, known as Blockers, to earn one point for each opposing Blocker that she passes legally and in-bounds.

Helsinki Roller Derby, like most flat-track roller derby leagues worldwide, is a skater owned and operated non-profit organization. Helsinki Roller Derby has been accepted as an “Apprentice” affiliate of the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association, the governing body for women’s amateur flat track roller derby. As an Apprentice affiliate of the WFTDA, Helsinki Roller Derby joins the ranks of more than 100 all-female, skater-owned-and-operated leagues worldwide that have united to lead the growing sport of women’s flat track roller derby.  Read more about HRD’s WFTDA Apprentice.

If you want to learn the history of roller derby, we recommend the following:

Check out our bouts on Justin.tv/helsinkirollerderby

This post is also available in: Finnish